The town I live in, Eldorado, IL, in 2005-2006 had a majority Mercury Vapor light content.    When a bulb would go out, the Ameren technician would simply replace the bulb.  As of 2008-2013, the technician would either replace the bulb (if he had any on the truck) or replace the whole assembly with a GE 201SA model 100 watt fixture.  It was not very often that the technician had MV lamps on the truck.  In the present, there are more GE 201SA 100W HPS Fixtures in my town than anything.  On the main roads and highways, they use the GE M250R2 fixture with 250 watt HPS.  My town has not advanced to LED (and I hope they don't).  There is one GE 201SA 250 Watt MV Lamp  in the alley behind my house, and when it starts up, it flickers a couple of times while simultaneously buzzing very very loudly, and will then ignite with a constant loud buzzing.  This fixture has not been replaced because the person paying for the light has not called and requested it to be changed (Kudos to that customer).  However, I am sure that when the bulb eventually fails, They will not give the customer a choice, and will simply replace it with a new GE 201SA 100w sodium light.   

I have seen my city has lots of merc fixtures up and running and they get relamped so that's nice. The only time a fixture is replaced is if the ballast dies or the pole gets taken out by a car.

There are still tons of MVs here but the POCO recently decided to stop servicing them and replace them with AEL Autobahn LEDs as they fail. I kinda wish I had a nice MV cobrahead leased from the POCO so I could continue to service it myself and help keep MV alive.

Try emailing or calling them. You could explain that you are a collector and maybe then they'll give you something. I have tried asking for a 175w NEMA bucket but none are available; they're all in service, which is a good thing.

HPS is a good thing as it is not LED

Rather then call, i think it would be better to make contact straight with the workers or walk to the depot if its nearby

The thing I hate about HPS is its poor color rendering.

YTu can as well hate clear MV for that....

Their yellow light may be not suitable for everywhere, MV looks nicer in many places, but they are as good HID lamp as all the other HID

They definitely penetrate rain and fog very well, and I actually like the orange color. That being said, I also like the classic bluish-green of clear MV lamps.

I like the color of a worn, well used clear merc. I also like the new HPS lampz when they still have a pinkish tinge to their color.

New HPS lamps, have a pure golden orange color without any pink tinge. As the lamp ages, it begin to recive a pinkish or reddish tinge. This isn't occurs with low mercury lamps (High xenon pressure HPS lamps, which often have low mercury dose, retains their golden orange color until EOL).

I like the new CMH lamps, they provide good mesopic vision at low cost.